


and the darkness hums

by maharieel



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-09 04:43:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17995085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maharieel/pseuds/maharieel
Summary: the comfort of running, and a sunrise, and the person you love





	and the darkness hums

Keeshan wakes up to the feel of hands on his shoulders.

He’s alert instantly, muscles tensed and coiled to attack – but he knows the uneven callouses that dig through his armour, knows the tangle of grey-blonde hair that swings against his forehead. Annika doesn’t have her eyes on him, focused at a point behind him, but he can almost feel her breaths running ragged against his skin. He lets himself breathe for only a moment before shifting to sit beside her.

She cuts him a glance, all hard-edges, and he reaches for his bow where it lies beside him.

“Movement, on the perimeter,” she whispers, accent sharp. Her hands shift from him to her own bow. “Trolls. Six of them.”

He nods, any semblance of sleep rushing out of him. He looks around their makeshift camp for any sign of Maiya, but the worg seems to have vanished. Annika doesn’t seem concerned at her absence, though, so he makes himself focus. Think, you idiot. They hadn’t risked a fire, not so isolated in enemy territory, so the likelihood of them having been discovered is slim. Still, he doesn’t want to take any chances.

“We should move,” he snaps, tucking his bedroll into his pack as silently as he can. “Where’s Maiya?”

He gets no reply. Turning to Annika beside him, he finds her eyes glazed over, staring off into the distance unseeing. It takes all of his composure not to start shaking her as much as his hands tense at the sight. He focuses his attention on where she’d spotted the Trolls instead, even if his heart is thrumming in his chest. She’d trusted him to take care of things until she’s done, and so he makes himself do just that.

There are indeed six of them, not that he’d doubted her word in the slightest. And far too close for comfort at that, barely a few hundred metres away. The only reason they haven’t been spotted is the early-dawn darkness and thick undergrowth. Small mercies, and all that.

He could take maybe two of them out quickly, Annika probably the same, but that leaves two possible warning yells that could ring out through the forest. He forces his bow back to his side, as much as his blood sings for violence.

Annika lets out a long breath beside him, and when he turns to her she’s facing him again. Back within herself. He can’t help the crease on his brow.

“Behind us is clear, but not for long,” she says, already shifting into a crouch. Coiled to move. “Maiya will cover us. Let’s go.”

He forces back the questions on instinct, body moving to mirror hers as the two of them slip away through the bush. Annika blends into the rot-mottled greenery, form slipping in and out of vision as they move. A quick glance at his hands, the only he can spare, tells him her gifts have shifted onto him as well. He feels a part of the tension ease, if only slightly. Quick thinking woman.

After a few moments Annika pauses and glances to the side just as Maiya appears from the undergrowth, white-grey fur mottled with mud. She lets out a small growl, teeth thick with blood, and Annika smiles. The three of them continue at a slower pace for a while after that, silence heavy between them.

Part of him wants to turn around and leave those Trolls as corpses for someone to stumble upon but knows such pointless violence won’t do them any good. Feathermoon will already be taunt with worry at their prolonged absence; no need to return blood-soaked as well. He pulls back at the bloodlust in his gut and forces himself to focus on putting one foot in front of the other.

“I forget, sometimes,” Annika says beside him. He looks at her to find her gaze elsewhere. “That a place of such horrors can still be beautiful.”

Keeshan is about to frown, his startled awakening this morning catching up with him, until he sees the mottled mess of orange and pink that’s spilling over the horizon. Morning, then. They were lucky to get out before the light betrayed them.

“It’s just a sunrise,” he grumbles, lowering himself onto a large boulder as Annika grinds to a halt by the tree line. His back aches with old hurts. It cracks in numerous places when he stretches. “A sunrise that could’ve made that escape much harder.”

He feels her presence before he looks at her. Annika has positioned herself beside him on the boulder, legs crossed, and bow laid out across them. Maiya tumbles in the sand of the small beach a few meters off, the grime melting away from her fur. In the fresh dawn light, her coat shines almost gold. Beside him, Annika’s hair radiates a similar glow. He doesn’t mind that he’s staring.

“Good morning,” she says, the faintest hint of a smile tugging at her lips. The tension from earlier lingers though, a hardness still clinging to the creases around her eyes. He knows nothing he does will make it fade.

He settles for pressing a kiss to her temple. She sighs at the contact, head angling to lean against his lips. She smells of leather, and sweat, and wet dog, and he loves her for it.

“Morning,” he mutters against her skin.

Maiya comes bounding back to them eventually, spraying them with salt water and sand. Keeshan curses the worg and kicks a mound of sand in her direction, earning him a growl. Annika simply ruffles the fur behind her companion’s ears and sets about tightening her bow string. Tugging his blades from his hips, he follows suit and grates his sharpening stone against them, occasionally throwing Maiya half-hearted glares.

They sit like that, bathed in morning light, until the sun is high enough in the sky that he can’t look at it anymore without squinting. Annika passes him her waterskin, and he takes a swig before offering her the rest. She looks at him with a slight frown but still downs it. Back to camp it is then.

“We shouldn’t be far from the Fort,” she says, standing. She offers him a hand, and he takes it.

“After you,” he says, heaviness all-but gone from his voice.

She traipses off back into the forest, Maiya hot her heels. “Since when are you a gentleman?” she throws back over her shoulder.

Keeshan simple chuckles to himself and follows, home on the horizon.


End file.
